Art Heifetz

Thronged by children
banging on the doors,
we’ve left the last bled
in our dusty white Renault
and turned onto a piste
that hugs the canyon rim,
bouncing from rock to rock,
watching the copper vistas open up
at every hairpin turn
like desert flowers
thirsting for winter rains.

We’ve wandered off the map
with no one to direct us,
not the silent Bedouins
astride their camels,
mummified in their brown burnooses
or the gold-toothed women
in purple robes and silver chains,
clicking their tongues
like disapproving hens.

This very night
we’ll make love
for the first time
in a hut of woven reeds
with moonlight
streaming through the chinks.

But we know nothing yet
of warm wool blankets
piled against the chill
of desert winds.
We haven’t seen the stars
above the gorge
incised in the pitch-black sky.
We know only the rock-strewn road,
and the fear of not reaching
the grove of date-palms
by nightfall.